People stand in line to go into the Supreme Court in Washington D.C. on Monday (Oct. 2) for the first day of the new term. The Supreme Court announced it would not hear in this term a challenge to non-unanimous jury schemes operating in Louisiana and Oregon.

The United States Supreme Court announced Monday (Oct. 2) that it will not hear a challenge to non-unanimous jury schemes in Louisiana and Oregon that was brought on behalf of a convicted New Orleans murderer.

Buried on the 59th page of a 75-page list of orders as the nation's high court began its new term was the notation -- without explanation -- that the petition for a writ of certiorari was denied for Dale Lambert. Lambert, 30, was convicted in March 2015 of second-degree murder in the 2013 fatal shooting of Bernard Santiago in Treme.

Found guilty of murder by a 10-2 jury vote, Lambert sought to have his conviction and life prison sentence thrown out by challenging the constitutionality of non-unanimous juries.

Dale Lambert, 30, was convicted of second-degree murder by a 10-2 jury vote in March 2015. He wanted the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his petition to invalidate non-unanimous jury verdicts in Louisiana and Oregon and order a new trial for the March 2013 killing of Bernard Santiago, but the high court denied his request Monday (Oct. 2).
Courtesy of Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office

G. Ben Cohen, the Promise of Justice Initiative and New Orleans Justice Center attorney who filed the writ request on Lambert's behalf, said opponents of non-unanimous juries were undeterred by Monday's decision.

"Despite today's denial, the fact remains that the non-unanimous jury statute was enacted in the post-Reconstruction era to block African-Americans from full participation in public life, and continues to deny full suffrage in Louisiana," Cohen said. "It continues to be a stain on Louisiana's justice system."

Southern University Law Center professor Angela Allen-Bell said, "The SCOTUS could have been on the right side of history this session. But this denial represents the continuation of the assault upon the Sixth Amendment rights of Louisiana defendants, as well as a defining step backwards in our national journey of social progress and racial healing."

U.S. federal courts and the other 48 states require juries to be unanimous in rendering felony verdicts. But Louisiana and Oregon require only 10 of 12 jurors to concur on many decisions. Had Lambert's challenge been heard and upheld, thousands of convictions in the two outlier states could have been thrown into upheaval.

But as was widely expected, the justices of the new conservative-leaning court had little interest in revisiting the issue addressed 45 years ago, when a four-justice plurality held that there is no constitutional right to a unanimous jury verdict in state-level criminal cases.

The U.S. Supreme Court's 1972 decision in
Apodaca v. Oregon
found that Oregon's jury law did not violate due process. A 5-4 decision the same year in
Johnson v. Louisiana
also found that non-unanimous verdicts did not violate the "reasonable doubt" standard embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment, nor demonstrate that the state failed to meet that standard if not all jurors concur on a result.

"At no prior point has the SCOTUS had the benefit of a 45-year observation period," Allen-Bell said. "Other states could have converted to a non-unanimous jury system after the
Apodaca
ruling. Many have debated it. None opted to change. That's a compelling statement and one that should not have gone unnoticed this session."

The Louisiana Supreme Court has relied upon the
Apodaca
and
Johnson
rulings in rebuffing numerous challenges to this state's jury system over the years, including overturning in 2009 a Calcasieu Parish judge's ruling that two second-degree murder suspects were entitled to unanimous verdicts.

Opponents argue that Louisiana's jury rules are steeped in racism, traced to a discreet effort at the state's 1898 constitutional convention to diminish the influence of black jurors upon verdicts. The state later moved from a 9-3 verdict requirement to 10-2 or greater after the 1973 constitutional convention.

"What the SCOTUS did not do and could not do is contain a movement," Allen-Bell said. "The efforts to restore Sixth Amendment rights will continue and will grow. Defense attorneys will still raise these challenges in Louisiana courts. Members of the public will be asked to speak their desires to the legislature and lend their expertise to this cause. While there are racial overtones to this law, this is not a race issue. This is a justice issue."

In Lambert's case, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a motion giving additional time for the Criminal Justice Reform Clinic to file an amicus brief in opposition to non-unanimous juries. But opponents will have to find a new case through which to champion their cause.

"We have filed another cert petition in a case involving a 16-year-old sentenced to die in prison by a non-unanimous jury," Cohen said, "and believe this is the beginning, not the end, of the effort to eliminate these racist statutes."